After Death
by Falling Tenshi
Summary: Sequal to The Feel of Feelings Rewrite. Harry/Ray is back, Hermione/Mia is getting married, Daimien is sexy, and the elves are pissy. Or: Ray has changed after killing Voldemort but then so has Mia; enough so, that they still see eachother as sibilings, but not nessicarally best friends. And they elves aren't happy with either of them, and plan to do something about it.
1. Stairs

So here's the first chapter. I plan to hopefully have this story finished before next year, but who knows. Once I get a few chapters ahead, I'll give you chapter two, and so on and so on until it's done. Also, I have no beta, so any mistakes, while maybe not fixed right away, will be noted and eventually fixed. Thank you and enjoy.

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Womans response in the beginning part is from: thisisbristol . co . uk/ encouraging-people-break-law /story- 19480707-detail /story. html #axzz2ejPunI6U

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**After Death  
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**Chapter 1: Stairs**

_When Harry first opened his eyes, he was confused. He wasn't used to waking up on a bench to an impossibly blue sky; especially since the last thing he remembered was a blurring memory of being stabbed and of stabbing someone. He sat up, looking around at his surroundings; maybe he had only been asleep for a little while so Hermione brought him outside and put him on a bench to heal._

_His bench was in a field of healthy green grass, which swayed in a gentle breeze, it was a beautiful sight, he's give it that. Unfortunately, it didn't boast a frizzy haired witch. Instead there where many more benches, just like his own holding people just like him – or not, that person has horns and there's someone over there with wings – though considerably less confused looking._

_He stood, since they looked less confused they probably could tell him where he was. The nearest person to him was a blonde woman looking ready to work in a government office. "Hello," Harry smiled politely. "Do you happen to know where we are?"_

"_Instead of reading his press cuttings the Chief Constable, Nick Gargan, would be much better employed reading the Highway Code. In his letter printed on June 28 he states: "And yes, there are some roads on which I would rather see people cycling on the pavement." If he cared to check Rule 62 of the Highway Code he would see that it states, absolutely unequivocally: 'You MUST NOT cycle on the pavement' … How can he justify giving permission to cyclists to break the law?"_

"_Uhh, yeah, wow, okay. I'm just going to go… over there." Harry quickly scurried back to his bench. "That was scary. Hopefully the next person I try wont rant at me about… something…" He coughed, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to his flounder. No one was so he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could do this, he was crazy too; he let out the breath __and then he-_

-opened his eyes.

This time he wasn't on a bench, but rather on a rickety ballroom floor in an abandoned house. He sat up and put his head in his hand, why was he here again? He went over his most recent memories, he'd been talking with Caleb, and, yes, it was about returning to the living world. He lifted his head, finally recognizing the room; it was where he had stabbed Voldemort. He tilted his head to the side, he still didn't know if seeing Daimien at the end was hallucination or not, but he supposed now that he was back he could just ask Mia or even the man himself.

He stood with a stretch, ignoring the creaking boards under his feet. He looked around, slightly amazed at how run down the place got in three years. Then again, it was probably held together by magic that was now long gone. He took a tentative step forward as the floor groaned in protest. He huffed, "I swear, if I die by falling through a floor moments after coming back to life, I'm… I don't even know what I'm going to do, but it's going to bad for someone else."

He fully put his weight down on his foot and then sprinted for the door. He made it without falling to his death and considered it a victory until he saw the staircase leading down to the front door. "Shit. Why not, why not make this _even_ better; fucking stairs."

He stretched out his leg and nudged the hand rails; they swayed ominously. He sighed; there went the idea of just sliding down that. "Well," he braced himself. "Here goes something." He surged forward towards the stairs.

About halfway down the deprecated stairs his right foot burst through the wood and he had to cover his head with his arms as he tumbled the rest of the way down. He lay curled at the bottom for a moment, calming his heart, before he stood and slowly put weight on his right foot. It held, so it wasn't broken, but he quickly took most of his weight off it anyway due to pain. "Well shit." He sighed. "This is going to make getting anywhere more difficult. What I would give for… a … portkey…" With a grimace he patted his pockets, pulling a card out of his front right. "Right then, Mirror Duck."


	2. Amusement

So, I had the un-fun panic attack of "OMG! Where's all my chapters?!" So this is short, and the following ones will be short until I can get into the rhythm of the story again, but I will try to at least update once a month (feel free to hold me to that and send an angry review or pm to me if I don't)

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_He'd eventually given up on the people; the few who seemed to realize their surroundings had no idea where they were, so they were as useless as he currently was. Well, there were a few he was pretty sure actually knew, but they just gave him a knowing look when he asked – one even patted his head! – but wouldn't tell him anything. So now he was wandering, with any luck he'd find a sign or someone who knew something and was willing to do more than stare at him._

"_Who the hell are you?"_

_Harry squealed as he swung his fist up and left where the voice came from; in his defense, the speaker was in his personal space bubble. His fist hit a furry head, which did more damage to his hand then to the head._

"…_Giant dog…?" Harry blinked at the black dog that was as tall as he was. "Hello doggy."_

"_I'm not a dog." The dog rumbled in the same voice as before._

"…_no?" Harry decided to ignore the fact that the dog was talking and focus more on the fact that it denied being a dog._

"_No."_

_Harry stared, he was pretty sure that was a dog._

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After Ray got over such a long portkey travel he looked around the arrival spot at Alamari feeling nostalgic. His surroundings seemed blurred as he remembered first arriving there with Mia.

He shook his head, his now elbow length hair swinging around with the motion. "Focus," he mumbled to himself and set off down the path to the school. The way seemed longer than he remembered, but it had been awhile since he walked it.

The doors were already open when he got to the building, but he couldn't remember if that was odd or not, so he just ignored it and walked in. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to the person walking through front entryway.

"Hey, you, person shaped blob," Ray squinted at said blob, finally realizing the entire time he had been without his glasses. "How did I not realize I'm missing my glasses?"

"Uhh…" The blob seemed to have frozen in confusion.

"No, never mind that." He squinted harder, that was either a male, or a female with a very deep voice. "I need to find either Daemien Bloodstone or Deputy Headmaster Riley O'Neil. Help a mostly blind guy out?"

"Uh," the guy took a step back; "I'll let them know you're here."

"No, wait," Ray took a step forward but the other male was already sprinting down the hall. "Must be a first year," he grumbled to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. "Seriously, afraid of a blind man;" he squinted at a wall and amended, "mostly blind guy."

He debated just wandering off, he might be able to find his way to Daemien's rooms, or at least find someone who wouldn't run off. But with his luck, he'd just as likely get lost and end up locked in a janitor's closet somewhere. So instead he just stood, arms crossed, glaring at nothing while he waited for something to happen; hopefully the kid returning with one of the asked for people, but he'd take another random person wandering by that he could get to help him.

He was just debating singing one hundred bottles of beer on the wall to pass time with a blurry human shaped figure turned a corner and came into his view. He turned and squinted, wondering if it was the kid before or someone new.

"Mr Evans, I can't say I ever thought I would be seeing you again."

"Uhh," Ray squinted harder.

"Riley O'Neil, I was the Deputy Headmaster when you first came to Alamari."

"Excellent," Ray perked up and stopped glaring at the blob to try and improve his vision. "Is my sister around? I think I might have traumatized her when we last spoke so I should deal with that. And she was really good at always fixing my glasses so she may be able to make me new ones, which would be nice."

"Your sister has graduated I'm afraid," Ray placidly went along with the man's leading hand on his back. "So she is not around. Professor Bloodstone however, will most likely be able to contact her or at least get a message to her."

"Oh, that's good. Are we going to Daemien now?"

"I believed that to be the prudent option."

"Oh." He sightlessly glanced to the side before looking at the blob again. "Have you always talked like snobby Lucas and I never noticed, or did that happen while I was gone? Prudent," he snorted in contempt.

"I can't say I have paid any attention to how snobby I sound," the man was amused, Ray could hear it in his voice, see it in the cheerful glow surrounding the man and feel it tickling across the bridge of his nose.

"You laugh it up," he grumbled. "I'll just make sure to send you Lucas' way and then we'll see how amusing you find snobbery." Riley didn't say anything in response but Ray had to rub his nose as the man's amusement increased. "I don't know if I like you anymore," he pouted.

"I will do my best to not let that bother me."

"Ha ha," Ray rubbed his nose more. "You suck."

The rest of their walk was in silence, one amused, one sulking. When Riley stopped at a door, Ray took a few more steps forward before he realized they must be at their destination and turned around.

"Right, excellent. Thank you for your help, blah blah blah; he is in there right?" he stared at the brown blob – which he assumed to be the door – suspiciously.

"I can assure you that Professor Bloodstone is in the school, I cannot however assure you that he is in his rooms at this exact moment."

"Well that's not very helpful," he grumbled. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the amusement he could still feel coming from Riley, he knocked on the door.


	3. Death

_Harry glanced at Caleb, as that was what the dog said its name was, wondering where the large creature was taking him._

"_You're annoying," the dog rumbled, shooting an annoyed look back._

"_Kay."_

_Caleb huffed, "Why do you keep looking at me?"_

" '_Cause I don't know anything and you potentially know lots."_

"_Not only are you annoying, you're odd," Caleb grumbled to himself. "What do you want to know?"_

"_If you're not a dog, what are you? Because I still think you're a dog."_

"_You're still on that? How hard is it to acknowledge I'm not a dog?"_

"_Hard."_

"_What kind of dog talks? Don't answer that, I'm not sure I want an answer." Caleb stopped walking and turned to Harry. The two locked eyes, black staring into mismatched green and purple. "I'm a Cerberus," with that announcement the fur on Caleb's shoulders ruffled and two snakes emerged on either side of the canines head._

_Harry's mouth dropped open with a whispered, "Holy shit."_

It was only a minute, but to Ray it felt like an eternity before the door opened to reveal the blur he really hoped was his vampire teacher.

"Ah, Professor Bloodstone," Riley greeted cheerfully.

"Headmaster O'Neil."

"I found an old student of yours at the front doors." Riley gave Ray a hearty pat on the back. "Thought I'd leave him with you." With that, the headmaster walked back the way they came, leaving the two alone in awkward silence.

Said silence was broken by a flat, "You died."

"Ah, yeah," Ray gave a nervous laugh. "About that, I can explain?"

They stood in silence for a beat before Daimien stepped back to allow Ray entrance into his rooms. "I'd like to hear it then."

"Great," Ray walked past the older man and stood waiting on the other side – it had been awhile since he had been in the rooms and he still couldn't see well, he didn't want to accidentally wander away from seating.

"What happened to your foot?"

"What?" Ray sent a bewildered look towards the Daimien blob.

"You're limping."

Ray was blank for a moment before he remembered the abandoned house back in Britain. "Oh yeah, I stepped through a stair and then I fell down the stairs."

"That sounds painful." Daimien put a hand on his lower back and led him to a chair, kneeling in front of him to look at his foot.

"It was, but I forgot I had a portkey and the railings were even dicier then the stairs."

"Well," Daimien got up and went to a nearby chair. "You only sprained your ankle on you adventure so you'll be okay so long as you don't do any repeats of it." He ignored the mumbled 'I don't plan to' and settled in his chair. "So tell me how it is that I saw you die three years ago and yet here you sit today."

"You _were_ there that day? I thought I had just hallucinated that..." He trailed off staring into nothing before shaking his head and returning his gaze to the Daimien blob. "What were you doing there? ANd why did you guys leave my poor dead body in that place when you left?"

Daimien raised an eyebrow at the questions and the lack of answer to the original question (not that Ray could see it) before deciding it couldn't hurt to answer. "We were supposed to get together to work on your array and you never showed, so I hunted you down. When I found Lady Mia's family home had been attacked and traced you two to a terrorist guarded home, I believed my concern to be valid and fought my way to you. I unfortunately arrived too late and you were to close to death for me to even attempt a turning to save you.

"As for leaving your body, we didn't. After you took your last breath your body," he paused to think of the best word to use; "for lack of a better word, melted into shadows and was gone."

"Oh." Ray blinked surprised. "I guess that's why Caleb realized something about me was different and wanted to know who I was."

"And does this Caleb have something to do with you being alive when you should by all rights be dead?"

"Not really? I mean, he was part of the decision it was time for me to finally be alive again, but that's about it." Ray waited to see if Daimien would say anything else and when he didn't continued. "I guess the first part was my surviving the death curse," he tilted his head in though; "and probably when I was twelve and a phoenix saved me from my almost death by Basilisk poison but were not sure about that one. Then coming here and starting to learn soul magic; my soul had quite the connection to death, more than most ever have. Because of this, one of my animagus forms which should have been a dog became a grimm. Which Ra was pretty pumped about by-the-way.

"Anyway," Ray coughed, embarrassed about going off onto such a topic. "So I had the form of an aspect of death and I kept going to class which meant my bond with death got stronger and just... more." He waved his hands around like that would help get his thought across. "So when I actually died, I was already so magically and soully (it's a word now Dai, don't feel so sceptically amused!) close to death I actually became part of death."

"It's not a word, even if you say it is." Daimien's amusement increased and yet also became more warm, finally believing this was actually his formerly dead apprentice. "So you became a grimm? You collect the souls of the dead?"

"No," Ray shook his head with a mischievous grin. "I had a closer, stronger bond by that point, so instead of a grim, I because a Cerberus."

"...And a Cerberus is he guardian of the dead, right?"

Ray didn't need to be an empath to know Daimien was confused; it was clear in his tone. "Nah, we're the judges." His smile grew, "We're who the grim bring the souls to."


	4. Formication

Formication = The sense of ant crawling on your skin

I'm sorry for the long wait (I haven't been into my email to see how many of you have yelled at me for it). I hope to speed things up by writing everyday even if it's only a sentence. So far it's kinda working since I finished this (I thought it was done, looked it over before posting and saw I was missing an entire chunk of it...). With NaNo however, it may still be slow until after xmas time.

I've decided to go back to using Harry and Hermione when not in conversation. Even if I have made Ray into his own character that is different from cannon, I still refer to him as Harry in my mind when writing and plot mapping (not that there's much plot mapping happening at this point), so…

Also, I seem to be having trouble pinning down one spelling for Daimien, and for that I am sorry.

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_"So, a cerberus huh?" Harry was doing his best to keep walking while staring at Caleb. He wasn't very talented at it since he kept stumbling. "I met a Cerberus once; he was named Fluffy but he had three dog heads."_

_"Hrmph, that was a mortal Cerberus, _I_ am a _Judge_, an _immortal_ Cerberus."_

_"...Kay... So then I guess you're old."_

_"You're annoying."_

_"I am," Harry nodded in agreement. "But apart from that, since you're old you've probably got all the been-there-done-that, so... where are we?"_

_"You don't know?" Caleb deadpanned._

_"Nope."_

_"Damnation," the cerberus cursed._

_"No thanks."_

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"I don't follow." Daimien shook his head. "You're going to have to give me more than that Evans."

Harry pouted. "What don't you get? I'm awesome and because of that I'm part of Death."

Daimien sighed and Ray grinned at him, already knowing his confusion from the phantom ants crawling on his arms and the burnt orange swirls. "I'm afraid most people don't know the inner workings of the afterlife, myself included."

"Bleh," Ray stuck out his tongue. "Well basically you start with the grims, which as you already know collect souls. They just wonder around collecting souls, the ones that people usually see in graveyards are the lazy ones since souls will usually follow their body for awhile after death.

"Once collected the souls are brought to Purgatory where they just…do whatever." Ray shrugged, there really wasn't a better way to explain that one. "Then there's me, one of the cerberus, who when we feel like working, have a grim fetch some souls from purgatory and bring them over to us. We then judge whether they deserve to hang out in whatever they consider heaven or whatever alternative, or if they need some good ol' torture and pain for being a very bad person.

"And really, that's basically the entire process of death. We try to keep the process pretty simple."

They sat in silence, Daimien taking in what he just learned and Ray wondering what to do next.

"So," Ray trailed off, not really having anything to say but not wanting to sit in silence. "Deputy O'Neil-"

"Headmaster."

"-mentioned on our walk to your rooms my sister graduated already."

"Yes, Mia graduated last year. Definitely one of our faster graduates; she left with an honours degree in healing and last I heard she was doing self study on arcane magic as well."

"She's scary." Ray shook his head, he had no trouble believing the former Hermione Granger graduated so fast but he still didn't see it coming. "What about Kaeden and Drey? Do you know about them?"

"The Quintin heir left school after last year as well, I believe his friend followed his lead and left too."

"Really? Wait, he left school? He didn't graduate?"

"Indeed. Your friend made a dramatic marriage proposal towards your sister at her graduation, which she accepted, and so decided to independently study unusual magic's and left Alamari. He and your sister are currently being groomed for when they eventually take over as head of the family so I occasionally see them at gatherings."

"He proposed?!" Ray sputtered. "He didn't ask me for permission! I only agreed to let him date my sister, not marry her!"

"He couldn't," Ray twitched at the exasperated yet amused feeling he could feel and see come from Daimien. "You were dead."

"...Oh, right." Ray ignored Daimien's amusement as he processed this newest surprise. "So they're getting married…"

"Yes, though I believe the plan is to wait another year or two for your sister to learn what her role will be and to make sure she knows what she's getting into."

"Getting in to?"

Daimien raised an eyebrow and Ray irritably rubbed his nose. "She will be marrying the next leader of a coven of vampires. Not only will she have to lead, but she will have to be turned."

Ray was blown away and glad he was already sitting. "I did not envision this when I told Kaeden it was okay to date my sister."

"What did you expect to happen?"

"I don't know, I've never dated before!" At that he felt the ants return to his arms, this time accompanied by pumpkin orange so he gave Daimien an inquiring look. "Why does that make you curious?"

Daimien shrugged. "I just find it curious." Ray scowled at him. "But back to the original topic; I don't believe there are any gatherings happening for another two weeks so you have two options." He leaned father back in his chair, relaxing. "One, I can send the Lady Quinton a letter asking a visit with a guest." Ray narrowed his eyes. "Yes, you have to request a visit, they don't just allow random people to visit the coven leader or her family." Ray stuck out his tongue at the still amused vampire. "Or two, you can stay here, continue learning blood magic as my apprentice and send a letter to your sister so she has some time to accept the fact that you are not as dead as we thought before you see her at the end of the month when I take you to the next meeting."

Ray scrunched up his nose, option one would get the lecture out of the way but option two would allow Mia to calm down. "Guess I'll stay here, seems like the best option." Then Ray impishly grinned, "And I may be Death, but I still need glasses and that sucks so there's also that."


End file.
